


Testify

by orphan_account



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alcoholism, Character Death, F/M, Gen, Grief, Hurt, M/M, Moirallegiance, Sadstuck, self indulgent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-14
Updated: 2014-06-14
Packaged: 2018-02-04 15:03:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,289
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1783279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He only  stopped shivering as he began to read over the straight line of crooked pink text.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Testify

Dirk Strider is frozen.

He’s always been cold, for as long as he could remember. Even when life was nothing but endless rolling waves of warm tropical water and the sun and metal baking under his hands and feet, he was cold.

He spends almost countless years living like that, remembers vaguely once sitting outside on a beam until the sun scorched his skin red, burning from the outside in and how he still felt so _cold_.

Like his home high above the ocean, a fixed point in this world even as the water lapped and tried in vain to crawl up its towering stilts.

He had sat there for hours, at least, and at the end, he had stood up, skin crackling as it stretched, all but raw from the hours he had spent under the sun. He set his shades down gently beside him. Dirk closed his eyes and raised his arms level with his shoulders. He thought to himself, just an odd passing thought, _testify_. He tottered forward; toes curled around the edge of a rusted pillar, and plunged into the ocean.

It was freezing cold and for a moment, it was soothing on his hot skin. Then the cold seeped through, stinging his bones and joints, burning almost as fiercely as the sun . He held his breath as he was tossed around by the waves, eyes squeezed shut. If he wasn’t careful, he’d be dragged too far from his home. He might not be able to swim against the currents. His strong lungs hadn’t even begun to ache yet but he knew they would soon. He also knew there were things in the water. More than the small fish he speared and fried occasionally. Things that he barely caught glimpses of from the closed blinds of his windows, things that slithered and swam through what was supposed to be _his_ domain, things wouldn’t hesitate to swallow him whole.

He opened his eyes and made a break for the surface.

He hauled himself from the water, fingers grasping onto the slick, burning metal and climbed. He was Icarus, wax melted and feathers lost, reborn, crawling from his tomb and back towards the sun. He hadn't activated either Sawtooth or Squarewave after their last maintanence and there would be no one to help him up. Dirk shivered at a gust of wind, clenching his fist tight around a support beam and hauled himself onto the deck, collapsing hard on the steel platform. His stomach burned, small bolts digging marks into hips but he didn't sit up. _Testify,_ he thought blearily, _testify, what the fuck was he supposed to testify?_

There had been no point to this experiment, besides figuring out that he could scale a few dozen feet in a surprising amount of time. Dirk staggered to his feet, placing his shades back on his face as he half stumbled, half jogged back to his room, leaving steps of small puddles in his wake. He shivered slightly at the blast of the ac, turning the corner and hurried down the hall.   He wiped his feet on the carpet outside before shutting and locking the door behind him.

His computer hummed sleepily in the corner. He almost bypassed it completely, more intent on fresh clothes and maybe a shower than movies and old video games. That was before he noticed a small light blinking, one that had never blinked before.  Dirk sat down at his desk, not wanting to soak his mattress and clicked on the notification.

He only  stopped shivering as he began to read over the straight line of crooked pink text.

* * *

_Her name is Roxy and he is thawing._

* * *

He kneeled.

He cupped her face, fingers stained and sticky. Her eyes, bubblegum pink and so much easier to read than the eye-straining, jumbled mess of letters and numbers and exclamation points she called type, were frozen wide, terrified.

Her lips were curled in a snarl, blood dribbled down her chin and chest, black lipstick smeared over her teeth and cheek.

It was a contradiction that made him want to laugh and cry. She had died scared shitless and absolutely (as she would have said) cup-tippin, fume-breathin, absolute- _a_ -fuckin- _ly_ furious.

He cupped her face as if she were going to wake up. As if she was going to blink and then grin in her smug Cheshire cat way.

 _“Why, Dirk Strider,”_ she’s purr-slur, _“what’s a prince like you doin hangin onto a gal like me? I might be getting ideas if ya’ ain’t careful.”_

He’d roll his eyes at her, maybe shove her if today was a particularly good day, and she’d bop him back with her hip, arms above her head like she was fit to start dancing and beam.

_“You wanna start this fight, DiStri? I’ll whoop ya so good you’re head’ll spin for daaays.”_

She didn’t blink. She didn’t grin smugly at him, her eyes half-lidded in the way they became when she was feeling at ease. She laid there, and didn’t move, save for the way her hair fluttered in the soft wind.

He ran a hand through it the way she liked and set her back down gently, slipping his arms out from around her waist.

Roxy looked like a broken doll, snapped in half by a child having a temper tantrum, slit from one hip all the way to just under the other side’s breast.

The smell of rot and her blood was enough to make his head spin, bile rising in the back of his throat. Dirk forced it down and examined her, letting the image burn into his mind.

He wouldn’t allow himself to look away, wouldn’t let himself forget this. He would keep this image, file it away neatly with the rest of her, and use it. This would keep him up at night, the way her skirt rode up and her socks rolled down, leg legs splayed in a battle stance, bruised and knees bloody. This would fuel him forward, the way her usually impeccable bangs were shoved to the side, plastered down, pink and red with blood, would keep him on the path, even if he lost his legs, he would keep moving.

The way that she didn’t reek of anything but blood and her own flesh would ensure he would make sure she got the revenge she deserved.

* * *

Her name was Roxy and he is frozen.

* * *

 Rage bubbled in his chest and he clamped down on it, slammed his fist into the ground beside her hand. Something cracked, not bone, but something, and when he lifted it, his own blood welled across his knuckles.

He clenched his fist.

She didn’t move, but he got the feeling she was laughing at him, from wherever she was.

 _“I’m sorry,”_ he had told her once, _“you deserve so much better than some frozen robot of a prince.”_

 _“Maybe I do,”_ she had said, because that’s how she was, greedy even if she wasn’t selfish. She took a gulp of her martini and swirled the remainder in her glass with the olive speared on a toothpick. She hated olives, but that was how Mom Lalonde had taken her drinks and that was how Roxy was going to take hers. She was past tipsy, but still not drunk, just loose enough to be comfortable philosophizing with him. _“maybe I deserve a fucking white horse too, and a happily ever kiss, but I’m a drunk, not stupid. And I know I deserve a lot more, and I deserve a whole lot less, too.”_

Her grin was self-deprecating, and he thought to himself that she was gorgeous in a way he didn’t quite understand. She was gorgeous in a way that he knew would burn alive if he looked too long and freeze to death if he didn’t look long enough.

She stung, like the one sip of whiskey she let him have and soothed, like the way she gripped his shoulders and tugged him back to earth, the way her voice, which would never be free of the dropped vowel slur ever again, brought him back from places that he was terrified to go. She was gorgeous in a way that made his fists clench when she got like this, where her words and sharp, brutal honesty stung him worse than a punch to the gut. She loved him and he loved her, fiercely, with everything he had. He lover her in a way that was exactly like the way he loved Jake and the exact opposite as well. She finished her drink and stood up, swaying, the glass, rim stained black as if her sips were kisses, abandoned on the end table.

She sauntered over to him, cat-like in her grace, even when she was inebriated. Roxy pressed herself against his chest, cupped his face, her nails pressing gently into his skin as if she were about to kiss him.

He wasn’t sure if he wanted her to or not.

She stared at him for a long moment and then sighed. _“I notice you got a real good thing goin with what I deserve and whatnot, Mr. Prince, but have ya taken a second to ask yourself what I want?”_ She patted his cheek and breezed past him, pausing in the doorway to steady herself. She chuckled, bitterly. _“Maybe you’re not my knight in shining armor, Dirk. But you’re my prince, and I wouldn’t have ya any other way.”_  She left and he had stood there until her footsteps disappeared.

He went to pick up her  glass and swallowed the last sip of it, the taste of her mouth burning harder on his tongue than the liquor itself.

* * *

 He leaned over and kissed her, because he knew he should have done it sooner. Blood and lipstick caked itself on his lips, burning where it had split from dehydration. “I’m sorry,” he told her, because fuck, he should have been quicker, should have known something was wrong. “I’m sorry I wasn’t better for you. I’m sorry it had to end like this. You were supposed to make it. We were supposed to do this all together, win this together. You were supposed to meet my bro and embarrass yourself in front of him and we were going to be great, Roxy. We were supposed to be gods together.”

She didn’t respond and he reached into his bag, pulling out the bandages he had brought back when he refused to believe the situation would be worse than a few cuts and bruises. He wrapped them around her torso, trying to piece her back together as he best as he could before lifting her into his arms.

“Come on,” he said, “we’re going home.”

Jane and Jake looked ready to burst into tears of relief when he landed, their expressions quickly changing, morphing into horror when he set her down. Jake screamed.

“Shh,” he said dizzily, the nausea building up once again in his throat, “she’s asleep.” He took two steps, just far away enough that when he leaned over to retch, there was no one to see the tears streaming down his face.

* * *

 Dirk hates Dave. He hates Rose too.

He knows it isn’t fair of him, and if Roxy were here, she’d be unhappy with him. She’d always wanted to meet her mother.

Jake and Jane hate them too. They won't say it, but he knows. He's known them too long to be fooled by Jane's small smile, the rest of her face unmoved, still and cold,  or the way Jake tries to keep an air of professionalism, continually tugging at his cuffs, feet shuffling slightly like he's getting ready to bolt. 

When they first meet, Dirk takes the opportunity to stare. Dave’s face is smooth and expressionless, but Dirk knows enough about self-control to know he’s faking it just as much as the rest of them..  Rose introduces them both, smiling courteously.

He remembers what he had been told, about her distaste for her mother, and how she had brushed Roxy off and hates her just a bit more.

He doesn’t go to shake their hands, doesn’t even bother to turn his head to give them the courtesy of his face as he continues to stare at them. “Hey,” he says coldly, shortly.

“Play nice, Distri,” his conscience berates. 

It’s not fair that they get to keep their Lalonde.

It isn’t fair that they get to be whole while he, Jake, and Jane scramble for purchase.

Dave opens his mouth and Dirk honestly doesn’t know how he’s going to refrain from breaking his wrist if he speaks when Rose pipes up.

“Where is _she_?” She asks, curiously, but subdued, eyes scanning the area around them. If she hates Roxy like she hates her mother, it doesn’t show. Rose doesn’t look anything but mildly curious, as if asking of a coworker’s child.

“Dead,” Dirk says and then again, “Roxy’s dead.”

She blinks and then nods, having the fucking grace to look slightly ashamed, although mostly she looks shocked. “I-I see.”

That’s it.

She sees.

No, she doesn’t, he wants to snap, no she really fucking doesn’t because Rose doesn’t know jack SHIT about Roxy.

“I’m sorry,” Dave offers, and awkwardly shrugs with one shoulder, “god that-that must…that’s fucking terrible, man.”

“Yes,” Jake says, sliding in besides Dirk. He feels a bit more grounded when his hand is squeezed. “We are still recovering from her untimely demise, so if you won’t mind being a smidge bit more patient with us…”

“We get it,” Dave says, and Rose picks up,

“All three of you obviously need time to recover from your ordeal, we understand completely and will do our absolute best to make you comfortable.”

Dirk thinks it’s a bit odd how he never put much stock in words before…the incident, and now it seems like it’s all he can do is sit back and analyze them.

Demise, Jake had said, because even in his grief, he was one for theatrics. Or maybe it was because he was afraid “death” or “accident” would sully it. _Death_ wasn’t always permanent in this game, _death_ would imply she might come back. _Accident_ would make it seem like it was her fault, like she had too much to drink and pitched right out the fucking window.

 _Demise_ was a better word for it.

 _Death_ was short and quick, a ten minute wait period before you rebooted and started over. Accident was tripping down the stairs, maybe breaking a bone or two but getting back up and moving on.

 _Demise_ was a teenage girl slit from bottom to top, bled dry and left to rot for a day and a half on the ruins of some abandoned city, just as she had shaken herself sober.  _Demise_ was three other people shaken and snapped down to their bones from grief, with not a tear drop left to share between them, not a smile cracked in weeks, _destroyed_.

Death would be preferable to this.

They don’t ask what happened and for that he is grateful, doesn’t know how he’d stand it if they opened their mouths. He feels hollow, with  but a ball of anger sitting heavily on the space where his lungs should be, burning every time he opens his mouth. He feels like there's nothing left of him, as if he's even less than half whole, the earth torn from under his feet and the sky ripped from over his head, leaving him breathless and shaking.  He's almost certain that if he presses his hand to his chest, there won't be a beat. He feels as if he’s barely human anymore.

* * *

“What was she to you?” Dave asked.

Dirk said nothing, silent save for the occasional soft exhale of his breath. 

Dave popped the tab of a can of Tab and took a sip. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to, but I know nothing good happens from bottling shit up.  And I think out of anyone besides you three, I have like, second place, on the list of people who deserve to know about her. Rose has first of course, but she’d rather die than ask. So I’ll do it for the both of us.”

He turned that over in his head for a while. Dave had a point.

“She was my mom.” He added quietly. “I never got to know her. I never even really thought about her until she died. I’ll admit that. And I know what you must think about Rose and you’re wrong. Dead wrong. Rose loved her mom. Rose loved _Roxy_ and it’s killing her that she died without knowing that.”

“She loved her.”

“Yes, she did,” Dave agreed, sounding a bit angry.

“No.” Dirk licked his lips and cleared his throat, feeling it creak a bit from disuse. “Roxy. She loved Rose. She loved you too, even before she met either of you, she loved you both so damn much.”

Dave made a choking noise and Dirk realized he was crying. “Fuck,” he said, wiping his eyes under his glasses, “I don’t know if that’s going to make her feel better or worse.”

“It is what it is.”

“Yeah,” Dave said gruffly, coughed to clear his throat and said again, “yeah.”

He’s nothing the way Dirk pictured him. Whatever bits of knew his of his Bro, there was not a hint of him in Dave Strider. There was no immaculately pressed suit, no smirk, bordering on smug and self-assured. He didn’t fill up the room as he did on the tapes and unlike the Bro Dirk had (not known, but) heard, there was still an accent  to his voice,  his original Texan drawl, mixed with something odd, something that caused his vowels to jump from his tongue and his consonants to hiss from his throat. ( _It was something he’d picked up from the trolls, Dave would tell Dirk later, who spoke English fluently, but couldn’t quite shake the last of the Alternian)_

Roxy would have adored him.

It is this knowledge and nothing else, he tells himself, that makes him reach out and give him a soft squeeze on his hunched shoulder. Dave tilts his head to look at him from his aviators.

“You’re going to be fine,” he says. “I’m not gonna tell you to make her proud or anything. There’s no point. You didn’t know her, you’re never going to know her and there’s no point to push her memory on you. At this point, you’re sad, but not because you’re going to miss her. You’re going to miss the idea of her, because you and Rose looked at us like we were your fucking parents or something. I did it too, I’ll admit it. But you’re not my bro, I’m not yours and Roxy was nobody’s mom.” He clambers to his feet, having watched Dave’s face go from sad, to furious, to blank.  “She loved you. Hold onto that, if you need to. She loved you and she couldn’t wait to meet you. Take that to Rose, too, if she’s so fucking curious. Roxy Lalonde loved you both and neither of  fucking deserved it.”

He walks off, shoulders tense with rage. His conscience was murmuring to him, sounding soft and sad. _That was cruel_ , she said, slurring through his ears, sloshing through his head, _cruel, cruel, Distri, he was only a boy…you were too-_

Cold.

He knows.

He doesn’t try to soothe himself, just lets his conscience continue burbling mournfully at him as his feet carry him far away from his brother.

He’s so fucking cold.

* * *

 _Her name was Roxy,_ he never answered,  _and she was everything._

 


End file.
